Eddie Van Halen

Eddie Van Halen modernised the sound of rock in 1978 on Van Halen's first album with his brother Alex¹, and he did it with remarkably little on his pedalboard. His overdriven tone came from an amp, not a distortion pedal: a 1967 or '68 Marshall 1959 Super Lead, recorded with on the first six Van Halen records²³. Around it sat a small set of effects, an MXR phaser, an MXR flanger, a chorus unit, and later two Roland SDE-3000 delay units at the heart of a three-cabinet wet/dry/wet stage rig²⁴.

Guitar World's buying guide put his influence plainly: "Eddie Van Halen defined the sound of '80s rock guitar. King Edward was perhaps as influential for his choice of gear as he was for his playing, inspiring countless guitarists to throw a phaser in their rig right next to that extra can of hairspray."⁵

The brown sound came from the amp, not pedals

The tone Eddie himself called the brown sound was an amp sound. On Van Halen I he was using a Variac, a variable power transformer, to dial the Marshall's voltage down. As Guitar.com's rig rundown describes it:

Guitar Pedal X's buying guide adds the practical reason: he tweaked the Marshall's output with the Variac "to get more saturation at lower volumes", with somewhat scooped middle frequencies¹. For the modifications to the Plexi itself, he chose Jose Arredondo, the tech synonymous with hot-rodding, in the 1970s⁶.

The guitars were as homemade as the amp was hot-rodded. In a 1978 Guitar Player interview he described the Frankenstein, the striped guitar heard on Van Halen I:

About half of the debut album, including You Really Got Me, Running With The Devil, Jamie's Cryin', Feel Your Love Tonight and On Fire, was actually recorded with a different guitar, a 1970s Ibanez Destroyer 2459².

Because the brown sound lives in the amp, pedal makers have spent decades building boxes to recreate it. Two examples:

• The Wampler Pinnacle Deluxe Distortion "was intended to re-create Eddie Van Halen's 'brown sound' from the classic era of Van Halen", in Vintage Guitar's words⁷.
• The Colombo Audio Eruption is a dual-function pedal with a Variac control: keep it down for a classic Plexi-style sound, raise it to choose the amount of virtual voltage drop that generates the brown sound's harmonic response³.

Neither is gear Eddie used; both are later makers' takes on his amp tone.

Early career: the Variac, the EQ and the Eventide gear

Eddie's pedalboard for the Van Halen I sessions and the tour behind it was, in Guitar.com's words, "pretty simple and free of conjecture": an MXR Phase 90, MXR 117 Flanger, MXR 6 Band EQ, a Maestro Echoplex and a Univox EC-80A tape echo². Boss's own history notes that he "famously used the GE-10", a graphic EQ pedal, in his early days⁸.

Later, his detuning work moved out of pedals entirely. MusicRadar's review of the EVH 5150 Chorus notes he "has used a variety of chorus pedals in his time (as well as rackmount Eventide Harmonizers for detuning)"⁹.

Phaser, flanger and chorus on record

The Phase 90 and the MXR Flanger are the two pedals most identified with his early sound, and both became signature models. The EVH Phase 90, introduced in 2004, and the EVH117 Flanger, introduced in 2007, came out of his long partnership with Dunlop's MXR brand¹⁰.

The chorus is a different story. He relied on a chorus pedal for songs like "(Oh) Pretty Woman" and "Little Guitars"¹¹, and used the same chorus unit on "Cathedral" and other early '80s tracks¹²¹³. MXR has never named the original unit: "this new pedal is based on a chorus unit that he used in the early 80s - although, for now at least, MXR is not saying which one", as MusicRadar's Trevor Curwen put it⁹. Gearnews identifies his original source for the Diver Down era chorus as the Roland DC-30 Chorus-Echo, "a table top/rackmount unit as seen in Eddie's onstage rig during that era"¹⁴⁹.

The wet/dry/wet rig and two SDE-3000s

From the early 1990s, Eddie pioneered a three-cabinet wet/dry/wet setup: a dry path from a single amplifier into the center cab, with the left and right cabs amplified with wet-only delay effects for a wide, multi-dimensional soundstage¹⁵. At its heart were two Roland SDE-3000 rack delays, each with unique settings¹⁵. Premier Guitar describes how they were used:

Boss says the two SDE-3000s "remained core components of his stage rig throughout his long career"¹⁵¹⁷, and his association with the unit prompted reissues of the effect as far back as the '90s¹⁶. In 2023 Boss and EVH jointly released the SDE-3000EVH, a stereo delay pedal developed in collaboration with EVH to recreate that dual SDE-3000 setup¹⁷⁴. Boss's history frames the pedal as made "in honor of Eddie Van Halen's historic contribution to guitar tone"¹⁸.

The signature pedals

Eddie's partnership with Dunlop produced a full signature line:

The Phase 90 collaboration is described by Dunlop as "an updated version of the legendary Phase 90", tailored by Eddie himself to handle everything from "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" to "Eruption"¹⁹⁵.

The wah has its own history. Eddie's own "Holy Grail" Cry Baby was a standard Cry Baby customized in the early Nineties with a more vocal-like, high Q inductor and a wider frequency sweep²⁰¹⁰, and Dunlop cloned it for the EVH95²⁰. Premier Guitar's reviewer connected it to his recorded use of wah on "Poundcake"²⁴. The pedal turns on and off by pushing the toe down until it clicks, with an illuminated blue LED indicating on²⁵.

The 5150 Chorus demo at Sweetwater suggests how Eddie set a chorus: intensity around 10 o'clock, volume matched, with stereo outs and selectable input and output levels for running through an effects loop or with hot pickups¹¹.

One story from the road

Guitar World reported in 2017 on Eddie's role in helping John Frusciante's tech, Dave Lee, track down an Ibanez WH10 wah when none could be found: Matt Bruck found one, and Eddie handed it over at his house²⁶. His parting advice: "Well, don't tell him that you have this one. When I think a pedal of mine is the only one I have, I'm a lot more careful with it."²⁶

Origin Effects' history article sums up his standing: "This pioneer arguably did more to advance electric guitar than anyone else except Jimi Hendrix."⁶

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